Hello,
in order to provide a better understanding of how TDF operates, and provide further transparency and insight to the community, I’d like to give you some “look behind the scenes” at TDF, and share further insights into the foundation.
I’ve already started to share knowledge and details about specific administrative tasks, and will continue to post more articles there over time.
This text is about how TDF currently operates, how we are structured, to help understanding why and how some things work (or why they don’t). Of course, this is the status quo. I do have quite a few ideas for changes and improvements in the future, and will share them in a separate mail later on.
The challenge is to strike a balance between improving the general TDF structure vs. delivering on our mission vs. addressing the challenging issues from the past. If we spend all the time to improve on our structure, we will not deliver on our mission, nor will we fix the issues from the past. And if we don’t find time to address the challenging issues from the past, it could fall badly on our feet as well.
A virtual foundation
The Document Foundation is one of the more prominent free and open source organizations, and LibreOffice is one of the most recognized free software projects.
One of the things people often think is that somewhere in Berlin we do have an office space, administrative infrastructure, meeting rooms and a coworking space. Some even try to visit our address of incorporation, looking for our office, just to find none of us working there.
The setup at TDF is different. People work from home, some from shared office spaces. There is no shared, physical space, all is connected virtually. That is a deliberate choice, because of an international team distributed in many countries around the globe, where a single office space wouldn’t make much sense.
The downside is that we don’t have centralized infrastructure, like storage of assets and marketing materials. We work with service providers and people’s private engagement, but it certainly adds a layer of complexity, because not everyone has space at home to store bulky TDF materials in their basement, and external storage to rent is not available in many smaller cities either.
This is for example why ask you to send original documents like travel receipts directly to our Berlin address instead of handing it to us in person on events and conferences. There is no centralized storage near any team member.
An international team
Our team of currently 15 people (and we’re currently hiring!) is distributed across the globe, in different countries, continents and timezones. While by coincidence we have several people in or around Munich, we also have colleagues in Spain, Mexico, Canada, France, Brazil, Italy, Sweden and Finland. Other organizations often only have team members in places where they have a physical office, which in the case of TDF would mean to hire only in Germany. For quite some time already, TDF has decided to work with team members worldwide. This is also the reason why a classical office space makes little sense, because it would be reachable only for a very few people and not by others.
This gives the best to TDF, because we can seek talent worldwide, but it comes with quite some administrative overhead on the legal side, and different regulations (like vacations, public holidays or sick leave) in the various countries, let alone time zones, or the A1 confirmations which I’ve pointed out lately.
Additionally, it is already a significant challenge to do proper compensation research in one country. I’ve literally seen ranges for one specific role from 20.000 € to 80.000 € per year, which is not helpful to identify a fair payment. Doing that on an international level, amongst countries and continents, is even more demanding, in particular as we need to document so things stand scrutiny. That explains why hiring sometimes take longer, as we also need to do our due diligence here.
The internationality at TDF also means that administrative tasks like monthly accounting, where we do translate the ledgers, our annual report that needs to be translated from English to German for the official filing and the official budget, which is done by the accountant in German for the official filing, but needs translating to English for the vote are done in two languages in parallel, which likewise adds quite some overhead. I am not aware of other organizations who translate all documents to the extend TDF does, we try to set a good standard here, but it comes at a cost.
Covering many different areas
When it comes to the roles, TDF is also different than many other organizations. Elsewhere, you often find overlapping roles or one role covered by several people, whereas TDF decided to cover as many different areas as possible, in order to deliver as much as possible on our mission. Team members can stand in for others in times of vacation or sickness, but we rarely have someone fully doing the same job as someone else, making a full coverage harder.
As an example, anything that is a larger administrative task (e.g. signing new contracts) is likely blocked until I am available. As another example, any larger infrastructure deployment is likely blocked on Guilhem’s availability - just two name two examples. Similar is true for VAT filings, at least in the past also the federal bank AWV Z4 filings, and many more.
While that enables TDF to cover more areas, it comes at a personal expense, with people sometimes working during vacations or at weekends, or in the case of infrastructure, working night shifts or public holidays, to keep the impact as low as possible.
We do have certain fixed deadlines that need to be kept despite vacations, absences or sick leaves. One example is multi-currency, to accept donations worldwide - the last day of the month, we need to ensure that at PayPal there is no leftover balance in a foreign currency. While that has significantly improved from the past, where there used to be leftovers, we still need to check on a recurring basis, including on the afternoon of December 31, where most people are already heading for their new years festivities.
Blast from the past
Until several years ago, the cutting down of administrative costs was pushed to an extreme. Members of the team were paying for many things out of their own pocket, including their essential work equipment like laptops, mobile phones and others. Additionally, to save on costs, TDF team members were usually traveling by the most affordable public transport, even if that meant waiting long at nights for connections, or sometimes walking a few kilometers home, to avoid more expensive transportation. While that is a thing of the past finally, it affected several employees and volunteers for more than half a decade, limiting our growth and impact to quite some degree.
No relaxed requirements
One might think that being a nonprofit, administrative requirements are relaxed. That is actually not true - TDF has to undergo (at least) the same scrutiny, and has to fulfill the same (if not more) requirements than any commercial organization: employment law, competetive law, tax and VAT filings, social security and many more. There is no “bonus” or “discount” for being a nonprofit organization, other than the financial one, i.e. not having to pay taxes on donations. We have to deal with the same amount of authorities than any other company, we have the same rules, regulations and filing requirements.
Fun with filings
As one example, the bi-annual, regular change of the board imposes quite some administrative overhead. A lot of filings need to be done, several websites need to be updated, so it can easily account for quite some hours of administrative work. As one example, imprints are subject to competitive law, and as such have to be kept up to date. Even worse is an address change, as TDF currently (we’re tracking this) has its address registered at about 126 (hundred twenty six) locations. One of the more annyoing nightmares is any change to the bank accounts - we need tax IDs, passport copies (with some of them being rejected as they can’t be verified in the security systems) and several signatures on paper, which causes quite some work as well.
Also, any change in the board composition asks for an update to the transparency register.
While we manage to file many things digitally in the end, it still can impose some overhead. Our quarterly membership filings need the signature of both the chairperson of the MC and the executive director on the same (digital) document, which adds some roundtrips. And for some things, even that is not enough, because a board signature is mandatory.
Tight requirements
Another critical deadline is the filing of our current cash reserve with the liability insurance. From the moment on the threshold is hit, TDF needs to file the updated sum, so it requires regular and close monitoring.
Failing to comply might not provoke a problem immediately, but can turn out to be bad for TDF when things get audited. One “classic” is the per diem payment, which is why personally I am reluctant about it. We need to evaluate from which country to which country someone traveled, which meals have been paid by TDF (e.g. hotel breakfast and catering), document and do the math properly. Failing to do so can cause issues later on, and the administrative overhead is not insignificant.
Documentation is key
Publication of minutes and decisions is another area that takes a lot of work. On one side, there is taking notes and putting them into readable minutes, on the other hand, redacting sensitive information is a daunting task too. I am glad we have improved on publishing these materials, but it remains a time-consuming task, even if we don’t factor in possible translations.
Another task TDF has to handle is the documentation of assets. Each year, with our annual closing, we need to list precisely which assets (e.g. hardware) we still have, where they are, and which one is defective. This is why every once in a while you receive an e-mail, asking you to confirm you still have an item, and you still need it. This is not distrust, it is to fulfil our documentation requirements (and also to send hardware to others in case it is not needed at someone’s place anymore).
Annoying bureaucracy
Talking about hardware, some noted that we are reluctant to ship outside of Europe. That is less related to the shipping fees, but more to customs. If we order hardware somewhere, and that is not needed anymore, it cannot just be shipped back to TDF in Berlin. Customs would occur, and forms need to be filled, which costs time and money, and we’ve yet to find an effective way to handle this. It is particularly challenging for a customs domain with only very few active community members, as the risk grows there is no one else in the same domain to ship to.
Another item some noted is the perceived annoyance with travel refund documents shipped to Berlin. That is not our deliberate choice - we’d love to do everything digitally and not ship things around. However, for tax reasons, we are required to have a signed form and documents at hand, which is why we need to bother the community with this.
Additionally, our trademarks need regular renewals, including proof of use. While the formalities can be handled by legal experts, TDF needs to submit evidence for the latter.
Luckily, sometimes things get more relaxed. After a change of the credit card provider, the PCI DSS verification has become much simpler. We need this to accept donations via credit cards, before it was a lengthy form involving documenting firewall setups and other details.
Sometimes it is even not possible to just close a bank account or close a cryptocurrency account.
What remains a mystery, however, is bank payments to foreign countries. Fees are high (about 40-50 € per wire transfer are pretty standard), sometimes payment are not possible at all, for other payments we need to document and explain to the bank the detail of the payment, because of anti money laundering rules, which get triggered every once in a while due to our international activities also in countries that are considered by the banks as “high risk” (that is the term I was told). So if your refund takes a bit longer, it might not be due to TDF being slow, but rather bureaucracy kicking in…
There’s always more
I’ll not elaborate in detail on all the challenges some EU regulations demand from us, e.g. GDPR, DORA and CRA, but they add work as well.
Different countries, different habits
One of the most frequent memes I heard is that the German system is to be blamed for everything to be so complicated. Let’s not fall for this fallacy. I am not saying that everything is perfect here - but I’ve yet to see a legislation where everything is perfect. Every country has their very own weirdnesses and odnesses. As long as you’re not hit by them, all is fine, and maybe for your concrete area of working, one legislation is more suitable than another one. That, however, does not mean that in general, some legislations are “better” than others. Also regarding the language, it is quite common that each legislation has their primary language(s) in which official correspondence is to be done. I doubt that you can make official filings in the United Kingdom in French or Italian language, or send in your annual closing for France in Japanese. Just because some legislations do have English as their main language, and just because it is, if any, the common denominator of our community, let’s not assume it is a language everyone is comfortable with. Challenges of language is something we face in each legislation.
Even if we’re not located in one particular country, we might still be affected by some legislation. Examples are the online safety regulations, nonprofit regulations in other countries or foreign tax form requirements for receiving payments from overseas.
Impact on people
I’m by far not the unique one affected, who has to make extra steps to make all these things work for an international community. Looking back the last decade, several of us had seen their vacations or weekends interrupted or disrupted, to deal with sometimes urgent/pressing/deadline-driving tasks, sometimes complex legal matters. For anything unexpected and urgent, there is usually, see above, only one main point of contact who can handle the details, without a full stand-in. In the long run, this doesn’t have good effect on people if they can never disconnect from their work. The same, of course, is true for all the volunteers in the board and membership committee, for whom the situation is even more pressing, as they fulfill a purely volunteer role. Sometimes the sheer amount of items in parallel, also existing problems that need solving, often mean that strategy work comes late, so does representing TDF at events and elsewhere, which is a very unsatisfying situation.
Why I am writing all this
We never really shared many details about how TDF works and operates. There are bits and pieces spread in the wiki and the forum, but not in a (hopefully) comprehensive overview. The community sometimes notes things not happening, not happening fast, or not having the priority they had hoped for. That is not bad intent. Things can be missed, overseen or fall through the cracks, but every so often it is simply also owed to the fact that TDF is big, has many things in parallel going on, is active internationally, but contrary to other large organizations, tries to keep a slim profile regarding administration, HR, legal, financial and others.
What we need to do
We could of course decide to not invest in projects to actually deliver on our mission, and use the money instead to grow on the administrative side, but that would not lead to anything visible for the community and our statutory goals. While I don’t have a blueprint, I imagine there are several things we can do to almost immediately improve as a community:
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We need to understand certain setups are a deliberate decision. Then, however, we need to be aware this has a significant price and not just falls from the sky, and might take time from other tasks.
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We need to support each other. When TDF asks to send a scanned copy of all your travel receipts in digital form, and then ship things to our Berlin address, this is not to annoy you or delay things. When we ask you that whether are still in posession of certain hardware, it’s not distrust, but fulfilling our duties. When everyone does a little bit, it helps to put the burden not on only some individuals.
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We need to plan properly. While luckily I am not involved in travel organization and hotel bookings, I am aware that the situation is similarly demanding here. TDF is not a travel agency. If people don’t reply on their travel plans, or change frequently, or last minute, that puts a lot of work and burden on TDF. Also here, if everyone plans properly and does a little bit, we can achieve so much more together. In fact, TDF tried to work with various travel agencies to outsource the problem, but they either refused us upfront, or were too expensive, or not fitting our needs.
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People taking on a role in the board or membershp committee need to know they get new duties, often in fields totally unrelated to their main area of engagement in the project. Being a member of a governing body is not an award for your work in the project - it brings big responsibility, and you must be up for that.
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We need to listen to those who have experience in their field, and who have been doing the job for quite a while. Asking questions and putting a different perspective on things is fine and can actually help to see the project from a different angle and with a fresh mind, but what is not fine is assuming that someone who never held an at least similar role would know everything better.
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Look for internal knowledge first. It is quite common with big companies to contract external consultants to tell you the plain obvious. This adds delays and costs money, with a result that could have been achieved much easier and cheaper. Sadly, no one is a prophet in their own land, but we should not forget that we do have a lot of competence at TDF. It was all of us who built up TDF, it was all of us who created one of the most important free and open source projects, and it is all of us who makes things work out every day. While it is tempting to stand on the shoulder of giants, we should not forget that for some things we might be giants ourselves and trust our very own judgement.
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We need to tolerate mistakes. Some years ago, I’ve literally seen several people leaving TDF after being scolded for one single mistake they made. A proper “error culture” is important, because only if we make mistakes, we can learn, we can grow and we can evolve.
I do have some ideas for improvements and things to change, which I will share with a separate mail later on.
About me
For those who are curious why I write all this, and what my background is, let me share some info about me as well:
I have started my journey as a volunteer at OpenOffice .org back in 2004 in the German marketing project. I’ve been appointed international marketing project co-lead three years later, and in 2010, I had the honour to be the lead of the international marketing project, taking over the duties from my mentor John McCreesh, who sadly passed away in 2016. From many of you I have learned a lot during this time, and many of you I have first met during this time, and I treasure all these experiences a lot.
In Germany, we began to setup a nonprofit association in 2005, called OpenOffice .org Deutschland e.V., later known as Freies Office Deutschland e.V., where I’ve served first as the youth work coordinator, later on as a member of the board of directors, and eventually in the advisory board. This association is the legal founder of The Document Foundation.
Together with our legal counsel Mike Schinagl I’ve driven the legal process and have written the statutes of our foundation. From 2012 to 2014, I have been the first chairperson of the board of TDF, and since 1 March 2014 I am the executive director of the foundation. Before, I’ve worked as freelance journalist, as a consultant for open source strategies as well as a sysadmin, and I have a background in law.
I’ve seen TDF grow and develop from the very beginning, where it was essentially a mere idea, up to what it is today.
And I do hope with the above message, I can shed some light how things work at TDF, so we can discuss improvements as a next step.
Florian